A serious question - Immortality ?

[Gone4Good]

Of course, there is the problem, of where too grow food for all those people. Much of the ground in the world is unusable due to mountains, etc.

Soylen Green.

What do you think they're going to do with all those "spare" body parts?

More seriously, I'm not terribly concerned about resources. Malthus penned his thoughts about how population growth would outstrip the planet's resources more than 200 years ago. He wasn't even close.

I also think population overcrowding is already basically taking care of itself with birthrates declining as wealth increases.

You also have to assume that immortality tech isn't something that's going to be freely available to everyone. The people who can pay to live forever are the very people who tend not to have many children.

 

[Gone4Good]

Speaking of The Matrix...

Is the universe a hologram?

It increasingly seems that way.

The recent discovery of gravitational waves means that everything we think of as solid is actually wobbling around like jello as the fabric of space time gets stretched and compressed by gravity. Once you imagine that, nothing seems real any more.

Scientists even set up a clever little experiment using lasers to show that it was true.

 

[Nemo2]

Of course, there is the problem, of where too grow food for all those people. Much of the ground in the world is unusable due to mountains, etc.

I've seen where irrigation can have amazing plant growth results in the desert.......massive desalination could (possibly) transform many areas.

 

[braumeister]

the entire world's 7 B people could fit in a city the size of Texas

Not if REWahoo has anything to say about it.

 

[gauss]

I pride myself in keeping older cars and appliances "going and going" by understanding, often up front, how I will be able to access spare parts.

3D printing age may make this even easier going forward.

I have had similar thoughts about human beings, myself in particular. Would still have to avoid something like invasive cancer however...

We are already going down this road with routine replacement of deteriorated joints (ie hips/knees/shoulders etc.) with artificial "spares".

I often wonder how much of death is the person eventually giving up.

-gauss

 

[gauss]

The earth would be too crowded if we have immortality. We have enough problem competing for resources as it is. So thanks but no thanks.

Sounds like a good business case to me for space colonization.

 

[Fermion]

It requires no faith or even significant stretch of the imagination to envision technology advancing to the point that the entire electro-chemical pattern in your brain is mapped and stored in order to be reloaded into a lab grown host of such age you choose. Alternatively you may choose to remain inside a quantum processor with augmented sensory input.

50 years to 100 years out maybe? I may not make it, but some of your children may live in this time.

 

[NW-Bound]

... Growing embryos invitro, then implanting them in a surrogate for the specific purpose of organ harvesting, will be next. The surrogate might be a human, or a lab.

The embryo that is implanted will be modified and be clinically brain-dead. That is, it will need food and nutrients, but will not be technically ‘alive’ from our current medical standards. It can be allowed to ‘grow’ for several years until the parts are of sufficient size.

Organs can be harvested as they are needed. One kidney or lung, a piece of skin, or even part of a liver will be no problem to harvest. If you need a heart, simply unplug the machine, let the organism go dormant, and take the part. Wealthier people may want several clones to enable retrieval of these spare parts...

I happened to watch Never Let Me Go, a 2010 British movie with this theme based on a dystopian novel of the same name by Kazuo Ishiguro. The novel was fairly acclaimed, as well as the movie. It's a drama, so science fiction fans looking for an action movie should not bother.

By the way, I also discovered that this author's novel The Remains of the Day was the source for a movie of the same title. He's a British author living in England, and this explains the background of his novels.

 

[NW-Bound]

Yes, extending life @ la Tithonus doesn't sound appealing at all.

That's not what I've seen so far. My line of work put me in contact with people of all ages. I occasionally saw 90 year olds who could still walk, but that was the extent of their mobility, and they were rare. Of those rare birds who make it to their 90s and beyond, nearly all of them are barely mobile AT BEST. The essentials are still working to the extent that they can breathe, the heart is ticking, brain function may or may not be full, but the muscles, the sinew, the joints...all break down after a 7 or 8 or 9 decades.
Now if we are talking "eternal youth" vs. "eternal life", maybe that comes with another set of challenges (I'm still not sure I'd want), but if we are talking "eternal aging"....nah...not for me, thanks.

Eternal aging? Please spare me.

You describe my father-in-law in his last few years. At the end, he once told my wife "I do not want to live so long". When you lose the mobility of the arms to the point you cannot scratch your nose, it's tough.

The reason that life expectancy has been improving was due to several factors, and modern medicine played a big role but it may not be as many expect.

Infant mortality is reduced. Infectious diseases are also no longer a major cause of death. When people get older, drugs help prevent strokes, and there are better treatments for acute symptoms. Many cancer patients get a few more years of life as a return for surgeries and miserable chemotherapy.

But other than the above, they cannot help much with the natural aging. When you can no longer swallow, they will insert tubes to keep you alive. Weak lung capacity? Put them on oxygen. That gets them a few more years.

I suspect not too many people hang around older people, particularly those in hospitals, recovery centers, or nursing homes to see for themselves. And some don't even want to go visit their parents or relatives. So, they stay in denial mode.

 

[O2Bfree]

No birth and no death here!!!

 

[AnonEMouse]

Anyone watched the 2011 movie In Time?

In Time (2011) - IMDb

The premise is a world where people are essentially immortal, stopping aging at 25 (thus eternally young as well), but programmed to die at 26 unless they gain more "time." "Time" is literally the currency in this world. You use it to pay your rent, buy food, etc. and you gain it by working and presumably investments. But when you "time" runs out, you die.

That's one way to keep an "immortal" population in check, though I doubt any age-extending advancement would be universally applied, at least at the outset.

To that end, how much is this going to cost and how long am I going to have to keep working to afford it?

 

[Nemo2]

Anyone watched the 2011 movie In Time?

In Time (2011) - IMDb

Sounds like Logan's Run revisited:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan's_Run_(film)

 

[AnonEMouse]

Sounds like Logan's Run revisited:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan's_Run_(film)

I forgot about that one. Though instead of an automatic death sentence after a certain age, you can live forever if you're rich enough in the world of In Time.

This also brings Elysium to mind, where the rich float above the impoverished Earth in their own eternal world with machines that get rid of cancer and other ills with the press of a button.

Unfortunately some malcontent always have to ruin the party for the privileged. That means any real breakthrough in our world would be highly secret. Which probably explains that Bill Gates interview - he probably slipped up and said too much.

Yup folks, you heard it here first, Steve Jobs did NOT die of cancer. He just got some identity changing plastic surgery and is living it up as an anonymous billionaire trotting about the world.

 

[NW-Bound]

It's been a while since I watched Logan's Run, but I do not think people in that movie have an option to live longer. That movie In Time requires you to work for credit or die. If your work is low pay or if inflation runs high, you have to work 24/7 just to stay alive. That's tough! I checked and the local library does not have it.

About Elysium which I watched recently, it was not clear why the rich people would not share their wonderful machines that could fix any bodily injury or illness. After all, the underclass would be kept in good health to work and to produce for the elite to just enjoy life.

And Bill Gates might just have been talked up by researchers who promised him the wonderful anti-aging/anti-cancer drug that they had been working on, in order for Bill to redirect some of his philantropic funds. It's OK to me if it becomes true, and Bill gets to enjoy it first. Hey, I believe in trickled down economy and medicine too. I just have to stay even healthier than Bill to wait for my turn because the line between me and him is fairly long. By the way, in the interview, Bill did not look bad, but still a lot older than me, so I don't think he got that pill yet.

About Steve Jobs, I doubt that his personality would allow him to fade away even if he could. Steve retiring? No way. He would be all over the Internet screaming about that recent FBI court order.

 

[photoguy]

Immortality? Nah my plan is reincarnation. Hopefully I will manage to come back at least as a dog in the US.

BTW, does anybody know what is the longest lived animal with a similar metabolic rate to humans (i.e. no tortoises or clams). Perhaps scientists can start transplanting various aging genes in a similar manner to GFP.

 

[Nemo2]

It's been a while since I watched Logan's Run, but I do not think people in that movie have an option to live longer. That movie In Time requires you to work for credit or die.

Take a basic premise and tweak/invert it......hey, a whole new movie.

 

[AnonEMouse]

About Steve Jobs, I doubt that his personality would allow him to fade away even if he could. Steve retiring? No way. He would be all over the Internet screaming about that recent FBI court order.

Oh, you mean "Crazy Steve?" No one believes him, he doesn't even look remotely like Steve Jobs.

 

[AnonEMouse]

BTW, does anybody know what is the longest lived animal with a similar metabolic rate to humans (i.e. no tortoises or clams). Perhaps scientists can start transplanting various aging genes in a similar manner to GFP.

Elephants? They also have the advantage of cancer suppressing genes too.

Elephant genes hold big hopes for cancer researchers | PBS NewsHour

 

[NW-Bound]

Immortality? Nah my plan is reincarnation. Hopefully I will manage to come back at least as a dog in the US.

BTW, does anybody know what is the longest lived animal with a similar metabolic rate to humans (i.e. no tortoises or clams). Perhaps scientists can start transplanting various aging genes in a similar manner to GFP.

A dog in a 3rd-world country may have a tough time (to even survive among people), but it will not get neutered as dogs in the US. Hmmm... Tough choice.

About gene splicing, good thing you rule out clams. It's a big trade-off for longevity if you have to look like Jabba the Hutt and leave a slimy trail wherever you [-]go[/-] crawl.

 

[Fedup]

The earth is a big, big place. As it is, the entire world's 7 B people could fit in a city the size of Texas if it had the population density of NYC. So there's plenty of room.



Of course we already have the technology to limit population size - it's called birth control.

Not many people want to live in Texas. I know for California, it's already to crowded even with the high real estate prices compare to Texas.


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[REWahoo]

Not many people want to live in Texas.

Thankfully, just a lot of divorced women...

 

[Fedup]

That's not what I've seen so far. My line of work put me in contact with people of all ages. I occasionally saw 90 year olds who could still walk, but that was the extent of their mobility, and they were rare. Of those rare birds who make it to their 90s and beyond, nearly all of them are barely mobile AT BEST. The essentials are still working to the extent that they can breathe, the heart is ticking, brain function may or may not be full, but the muscles, the sinew, the joints...all break down after a 7 or 8 or 9 decades.

Now if we are talking "eternal youth" vs. "eternal life", maybe that comes with another set of challenges (I'm still not sure I'd want), but if we are talking "eternal aging"....nah...not for me, thanks.

My ex-neighbors were 94 and 98. The wife had cancer but recover and she was very mobile. I often saw her sweeping the sidewalk, she was so cute and could easily passed for 60s. Another relative died at 104, she had a heart bypass surgery at 84, but extremely sharp. She remembered which video that she already watched. I don't think I can now. I think it's safe to say not everybody will breakdown once they reach their 90s. The Seventh Day Adventist people seem to age well in their 90s, must be their vegetarian diet.


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[Teacher Terry]

It really depends on quality of life for me. 2 of my grandparents just died of old age and 2 really suffered with cancer. My Mom got 3 bouts of serious cancer at 78, 84 & 87 but still had quality of life. She lived alone until a week before she died. My Dad on the other hand suffered for 14 long years and then died at 73. I have a good friend in a home now with early Alzheimer's fairly bad off at 64 but now her cancer is back.

 

[NW-Bound]

Take a basic premise and tweak/invert it......hey, a whole new movie.

But I like to have the option of being allowed to live if I work. When I get tired and do not want to go on anymore, I can just put down my pick ax and say "I am ready. Take me home".

So, I like the premise of the 2nd movie better.

 

[braumeister]

The Seventh Day Adventist people seem to age well in their 90s, must be their vegetarian diet.

I would be skeptical of that. I believe it's mainly in the genes.

Jeanne Calment, the oldest person ever (122) is a great example:

Calment's remarkable health presaged her later record. At age 85 (1960), she took up fencing, and continued to ride her bicycle up until her 100th birthday. She was reportedly neither athletic nor fanatical about her health...

Calment lived on her own until shortly before her 110th birthday
However, Calment was still in good shape, and continued to walk until she fractured her femur during a fall at age 114 years 11 months (January 1990), which required surgery...

It has been claimed that Calment smoked cigarettes from the age of 21 (1896) to 117 (1992). According to one source, she smoked no more than two cigarettes per day...

Calment ascribed her longevity and relatively youthful appearance for her age to a diet rich in olive oil (which she also rubbed onto her skin), as well as a diet of port wine, and ate nearly one kilogram (2.2 lb) of chocolate every week. She also credited her calmness, saying, "That's why they call me Calment." Calment reportedly remained mentally intact until her very end.

I have also personally known two people who remained mentally sharp past the age of 100, but I don't believe it's possible to predict who might become a centenarian.